from the fake-news dept

We've already made our views clear on the horrible nature of the Trump administration's ban on travelers who were born in seven predominantly Muslim countries. The administration has been trying to defend the program, but its talking points are (once again) falling apart. For example, the idea that this only "inconvenienced" a tiny percentage of people and was only temporary — government lawyers have now revealed that over 100,000 visas were permanently revoked. Permanently.

But the story that's gotten a lot more attention is how Trump aide Kellyanne Conway went on TV last night and tried to back up another talking point: that this is no different than what President Obama did with Iraqi visas. That's not true, but we'll get to that. Even if it were true, Conway seemed to literally make up a terrorist attack that didn't happen, calling it the "Bowling Green Massacre."

Of course, there was no such massacre. This has resulted in lots and lots of social media mocking about the "massacre" that didn't exist. Some of the mocking is actually quite funny. And, of course, you might want to go donate to the Bowling Green Massacre Fund to support the victims.

Even ignoring the ridiculous massacre claim, and accepting the idea that she just meant to say "terrorists", absolutely everything about this story fails to make her point unless you actively distort it. Let's dig in:

The two Iraqis were "terrorists" set to carry out a bombing plot. Nope. It turns out that the two guys arrested were involved yet another of the FBI's "own plots." If you're new to this, for years we've covered how the FBI (rather than actually taking on criminal activity) has been inventing its own fake terrorist plots, and then using undercover agents and informants to bully dupes into "joining" the non-existent, FBI-created, FBI-financed, FBI-supplied "plots." We've written about examples of this over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again (so don't go in the comments and ask why this story is on Techdirt...)

And the "Bowling Green Terrorists" story is the same exact thing all over again:

From that fall through the following spring, the FBI informant invited Alwan to participate in 10 operations to send weapons or money to Iraq.

There was no bombing plot against Americans. The FBI's "own plot" here didn't even involve attacks on America. It was just about sending (non-existent) money and weapons to Iraq:

...throughout their interactions with undercover FBI agents in 2010 and 2011, Alwan and Hammadi never discussed plans to attack anyone or cause destruction on U.S. soil. And while they were found guilty of attempting to provide material support to al Queda militants back in Iraq, the men never indicated that they were personally in contact with any militants, attempted to procure weapons for such individuals, or attempted to provide any of their own money to such individuals. Rather, they showed up when and where the FBI informant told them to and helped physically load decoy supplies into whatever they were allegedly being shipped from.

There was never any support for the claim that they were part of a larger cell of terrorist refugees: Again, this was a tiny "plot" manufactured by the FBI to send weapons and money to Iraq, not to attack the US. And while Conway has been blowing up Twitter by claiming this ABC story proves that other refugee "terrorists" were here, that article is from 2013, and not a single other person has been arrested, no other terrorist plots associated with refugees (real or fake) have been found or (more importantly) taken place.

Conway claimed that the media didn't report on the Bowling Green situation... but her proof that it happened is pointing to an article from ABC. Enough said on that.

What Obama did in response to that was different: This has been a key talking point for those supporting the ban. They claim that no one complained about Obama "ban" for six months on people from Iraq in response to the Bowling Green "terrorists." Except that's simply false. As has been carefully reported in a ton of places, what President Obama did in 2011 was entirely different. There was no ban. There was no stoppage. A single type of visa just had more stringent vetting put in place that briefly slowed the throughput of applications. If you want the most thorough explanation I've seen for just how different the two situations are, read the analysis at Foreign Policy Magazine.

Even if President Obama had done the same thing, people should still be upset: Because banning all people from a certain country or set of countries without a specific reason or threat, and (in the process) wreaking havoc on the lives of tons of people, including permanent residents and American citizens, deserves to be condemned as simply cruel.

In summary, Kellyanne Conway is using a non-existent "Bowling Green Massacre" to defend an inhumane policy, based on falsely arguing that two refugees, who were ensnared in a plot created by the FBI to send fake money and fake weapons back to Iraq (and not to attack America), were the tip of the iceberg of a bunch of refugee terrorists (who didn't actually exist) planning to attack America (which never happened) and because of that fake plot, fake massacre and fake terrorists, President Obama similarly banned people from Iraq -- which was something he didn't do. Is that about the sum of it?

from the about-time dept

Well, here's a surprise. President Obama has just commuted the bulk of Chelsea Manning's sentence, meaning she will be freed this May, rather than having to spend another three decades in jail. Manning, of course, was sent to prison for sharing a large chunk of US diplomatic cables with Wikileaks. Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison nearly four years ago (with credit for the 3.5 years she'd already been held, often in solitary confinement). Many people were already outraged at the sentence, especially given that there was no evidence of any actual harm from the leaks.

There were two big campaigns going on over the past few months -- one to pardon Ed Snowden, and another to commute Manning's sentence. President Obama had already made it fairly clear that he had no interest in pardoning Snowden based on the totally false claim that he could not pardon Snowden prior to Snowden being convicted. In the past few weeks, however, there were at least a few hints and rumors that Obama was seriously considering commuting Manning's sentence, and that led to even more focus on the campaign. Ed Snowden himself also advocated for Manning, even ahead of his own case:

Mr. President, if you grant only one act of clemency as you exit the White House, please: free Chelsea Manning. You alone can save her life.

And yes, commuting the sentence (which shortens the sentence, but is not a full pardon...) is a form of clemency. So now there's a separate question to ask: will Assange agree to be extradited to the US (or will he just come here voluntarily?). Perhaps after Trump takes over later this week, that won't be such a huge concern, since Trump has magically morphed into a huge Wikileaks/Assange supporter.

Unfortunately, though, it does appear that the likelihood of a Snowden pardon is also almost nil. In discussing today's commutation of Manning's sentence, White House spokesperson Josh Earnest basically argued that what Snowden did was much worse than Manning, because he "fled":

"Chelsea Manning is somebody who went through the military criminal justice process, was exposed to due process, was found guilty, was sentenced for her crimes, and she acknowledged wrongdoing," he said. "Mr. Snowden fled into the arms of an adversary, and has sought refuge in a country that most recently made a concerted effort to undermine confidence in our democracy."

He also noted that while the documents Ms. Manning provided to WikiLeaks were "damaging to national security," the ones Mr. Snowden disclosed were "far more serious and far more dangerous." (None of the documents Ms. Manning disclosed were classified above the merely “secret” level.)

While I agree that there was a difference in the types of documents revealed, one might also make the argument that Snowden's leaks revealed much more serious problems and the impact of his leaks were much more important in revealing to the American public abuses by our own government. Separately, the whole "fled into the arms of adversary" thing is silly as well. As has been explained multiple times, Snowden ended up in Russia after the US pulled his passport while he was traveling. And, at the same time, a big part of the reason Snowden left the US was the unfortunate treatment of Manning by the military judicial process. Snowden properly surmised that he would not be treated fairly. And apparently that continues to this day.

Either way, it's good that Manning's sentence has been commuted. It's been clear from many reports that Manning was unlikely to survive the full sentence given to her, and she's been treated horribly in prison as well. It's still too bad that President Obama is unwilling to also pardon Snowden.

from the Security-Thru-Advanced-Situational-Intelligence dept

The NSA can now be used for second-hand domestic surveillance, thanks to new rules approved by President Obama that went into effect on January 3rd. Those unhappy to see Trump in control of these expanded powers have no one to thank but their outgoing president for this parting gift.

This was first reported early last year, gathered from anonymous intelligence community sources and the now-useless PCLOB's report on the FBI's use of unminimized intelligence passed on to it by the NSA. At that point, it was mostly speculation, with the PCLOB's report being the only thing in the way of factual information. The administration was confirmed to be working towards loosening restrictions on data sharing, even as the FBI was swearing it was tightening up control of its own use of unminimized data.

The new rules significantly relax longstanding limits on what the N.S.A. may do with the information gathered by its most powerful surveillance operations, which are largely unregulated by American wiretapping laws. These include collecting satellite transmissions, phone calls and emails that cross network switches abroad, and messages between people abroad that cross domestic network switches.

The perceived benefit of this relaxation of the rules is this: government agencies will no longer have to worry about being siloed off from possibly relevant info by restrictions on unminimized collections. The downside is, well… everything else.

Previously, the N.S.A. filtered information before sharing intercepted communications with another agency, like the C.I.A. or the intelligence branches of the F.B.I. and the Drug Enforcement Administration. The N.S.A.’s analysts passed on only information they deemed pertinent, screening out the identities of innocent people and irrelevant personal information.

Now, other intelligence agencies will be able to search directly through raw repositories of communications intercepted by the N.S.A. and then apply such rules for “minimizing” privacy intrusions.

There are sixteen(!) government agencies being made equal partners in the NSA's full-take surveillance programs. Rather than place the agency that hoovers up the signals intelligence in charge of ensuring the privacy of US citizens is protected, the administration is letting multiple agencies with different agendas and rulesets have access to the data first, with any minimization being left up to each agency's individual policies.

The NSA still retains the option to deny an agency's request to an unminimized "feed" of incoming collections, but it's likely denials will be few and far between -- what with the Wars on Terror/Drugs still ongoing and showing no signs of wrapping up anytime soon. Anything deemed to be tangentially-related to national security will likely receive the NSA's blessing... because doing otherwise would be incredibly hypocritical. The "national security" mantra has been deployed to excuse its worst excesses. Far be it from the NSA to deny the national security "needs" of other agencies similarly situated.

This was pretty much confirmed by ODNI's counsel Bob Litt's attempt to defuse the situation when it first came to light last spring. His painful editorial at Just Security said this was all no big deal. After all, the new rules didn't provide for more domestic surveillance than the government was already performing. It just allowed more agencies to look at what was already being collected and do with it what they wanted. SHRUG.

As for the FBI, which has been a longtime partner in the NSA's surveillance haul, its new internal rules are no longer relevant, seeing as the administration has given its blessing to go ahead and use supposedly foreign-facing intelligence programs for domestic law enforcement activity. While the FBI was supposed to restrict its use of the data haul for counter-terrorist investigations, the FBI was able to turn over anything it found related to normal criminal activity to the DOJ. So, even prior to the official relaxation, the FBI was acting as a conduit between the NSA and other law enforcement agencies.

All of this means the NSA is now officially a domestic surveillance agency, even if a majority of its exploration of Americans' data/communications is being done by proxy.

from the finger-pointin' dept

We've noted how one of Trump's top telecom advisors is Jeffrey Eisenach, a long-time Verizon consultant and aggressive opponent of net neutrality. Eisenach's one of three Trump advisors who have made it clear their top priority in the new administration will be to not only gut net neutrality, but to defang and defund the FCC as a consumer watchdog on telecom issues. Eisenach isn't just an advisor, he's also on the shortlist to be the next head of an agency he doesn't believe in.

But when Eisenach isn't busy dreaming about dismantling net neutrality, he can apparently be found writing logically incoherent op-eds over at the Wall Street Journal. In a strange little tirade posted on January 3, Eisenach quite correctly ridicules the Washington Post's recent false claim that Russians were busy hacking U.S. utilities. In short, a piece of common malware was found on one PC, and because the Washington Post couldn't be bothered to even call the company in question, the paper created a bogus narrative, based entirely on anonymous sources, that casually pushed the country closer to war.

Yeah, no biggie.

Eisenach starts off well enough, quite correctly illustrating the depth of the Washington Post's failure on the story, and how the malware was arguably run of the mill, and certainly not directly tied to the government:

"The kind of malware involved in these two intrusions is neither new nor particularly sophisticated. It is run-of-the-mill spyware that has probably been implanted on thousands of networks around the world, from home computers to those inside banks, power companies and government agencies. These bugs are freely available online, and the code found at the Democratic National Committee and the power company isn’t even the latest version. The notion that such a mundane piece of software reveals a new and ominous threat to critical infrastructure is laughable."

All true. But Eisenach's piece then takes a strange turn, in that it somehow tries to blame the Washington Post's awful reporting on... the outgoing President:

"Misleading the American people to advance a political narrative has been a hallmark of President Obama’s foreign policy. The most recent example is the administration’s attempt to conflate the hacking of the Democratic Party with potential cyberattacks on critical infrastructure...Cyberthreats pose a clear danger to national security, and building an effective defense will take a concerted effort by the Trump administration. Americans are right to be concerned. But by playing on those fears, the Obama administration is putting politics ahead of the national interest."

While the Washington Post was once again happy to quote all manner of anonymous, pearl-clutching intelligence sector insiders for its story (a bipartisan disorder for sure), Obama wasn't among them. Nor is there any indication that the Obama administration actively encouraged the Washington Post to trip over its own shoelaces and perform an epic, journalistic face-plant. Obama certainly has been no saint on cybersecurity, but to blame him for the Washington Post's dysfunction is more than a little strange, especially when the entire point of your article is to lament the senseless politicization of cybersecurity.

Someone might want to notify Eisenach that as a top advisor and potential new FCC boss, he's now the one in a position of power. If your goal is to demonstrate that partisan patty cake should be nowhere near technology and cybersecurity policy, why not demonstrate that with your actions -- instead of penning editorials that completely undermine the entire point you're trying to make?

from the be-concerned dept

So, we just wrote about Obama administration's tepid response to claims that Russians "interfered" with the Presidential election. In that post, we noted our concerns about the fact that we seem to be escalating a situation based on claims where we're not allowed to see any of the actual evidence. I've seen a bunch of people arguing that anyone who won't automatically accept that Russia interfered in the election should be dubbed either Putin supporters or, at the very least, "useful idiots" but we should be very, very careful about where this leads. I certainly think that there's a tremendous possibility that Russian forces did intend to interfere with our election, but I'd certainly like to see some actual evidence -- and the "evidence" provided so far shows no such thing.

And this should scare you. Not because it means that anyone is lying, but because it's setting the stage for very dangerous things. If we're setting the precedent that the US government can escalate situations based on purely secret knowledge, what's to stop them from doing so over and over again? Put another way: for those who dislike Trump, but are happy about the White House calling out and sanctioning Russia, how will you feel when President Trump makes similar claims about some other country (perhaps one blocking a new Trump hotel?), and proceeds to issue US government sanctions on that country -- but without releasing any actual evidence of wrongdoing beyond "government agencies say they did bad things." Won't that be concerning too?

This dramatic story puts the news media in a jackpot. Absent independent verification, reporters will have to rely upon the secret assessments of intelligence agencies to cover the story at all.

Many reporters I know are quietly freaking out about having to go through that again. We all remember the WMD fiasco.

And, as he later notes:

The problem with this story is that, like the Iraq-WMD mess, it takes place in the middle of a highly politicized environment during which the motives of all the relevant actors are suspect. Nothing quite adds up.

If the American security agencies had smoking-gun evidence that the Russians had an organized campaign to derail the U.S. presidential election and deliver the White House to Trump, then expelling a few dozen diplomats after the election seems like an oddly weak and ill-timed response. Voices in both parties are saying this now.

And this is a big part of the problem. Because none of the evidence is public, beyond just statements of attribution, we're left with no way to know what are actually reasonable responses. There's a big spectrum of possibilities that might be described as "Russian interference" from merely helping some independent hackers release information (as some have charged) to using actual intelligence agencies to run a serious hacking operation (as others have charged), all the way up to actively tampering in voting systems (which some in the public now claim, but which no official has suggested actually happened).

The problem isn't so much a question of whether or not the Russians did something. Maybe they did. It certainly wouldn't surprise me at all if they did. At the very least, Russian officials seem to be laughing at everything going on now. The real issue is the danger of having the force and power of the US government responding to "actions" by stating things as true, without providing any evidence to back it up. In that space, a lot of mischief can and will occur. Looking back at the invasion of Iraq based on faulty reports is just one example. We should be learning from that lesson, not repeating it.

“While the dual-hat arrangement was once appropriate in order to enable a fledgling Cybercom to leverage NSA’s advanced capabilities and expertise, Cybercom has since matured” to the point where it needs its own leader, Obama said in a statement accompanying his signing of the 2017 defense authorization bill.

Basically, no one man should have all this power. This scales back the NSA's offensive involvement, leaving it to play defense for the US government -- a limitation it's never been happy with.

The offensive end of the nation's cyberwarfare will now have its own leader, which points towards an increase in offensive efforts, rather than tighter handling of the reins.

Sticking the NSA with defense doesn't make it happy, considering the wealth of offensive weapons it has at its disposal. But having a new singular focus may help it refine its pitch for a cut of some unfiltered domestic data. The NSA would rather be in on the ground floor of the information sharing forced on private companies by the recent passage of cybersecurity legislation. If it can defend the government's most sensitive networks, surely it can be trusted handling the civilian side as well?

Obama's approval of the defense spending bill may be putting different hats on different individuals, but his letter also notes that the more things change, the more things aren't really going to change for the foreseeable future.

“The two organizations should have separate leaders who are able to devote themselves to each organization’s respective mission and responsibilities, but should continue to leverage the shared capabilities and synergies developed under the dual-hat arrangement,” Obama wrote.

So, there will be two different figureheads leading two different Cybercommand wings… but working together in the same building… using the same NSA-developed tools… during a "phased transition" with no clear endpoint.

from the 'accidental'-incineration,-probably dept

Even if the White House won't declassify the full CIA Torture Report, at least we know one copy will be locked up in President Obama's archives for 12 years. That prevents Senator Burr and others from making the report disappear completely.

The White House copy isn't the only copy of the report, but at least we know where that one is. Other agencies have copies. Or had them. But they haven't read them. The CIA destroyed its copy of the report -- the sort of "accident" that often befalls damning reports in the hands of the agency targeted by them.

There's another copy sitting further up the hierarchy as well. Or is there? The Defense Department is supposed to have its own copy and as the department the CIA answers to, it should be doing what it can to ensure its copy doesn't disappear.

Last week it emerged that the existence of the Defense Department’s copy is also in doubt. The chief prosecutor at the Guantanamo military commissions, Army Brig. Gen. Mark Martins, repeatedly refused to answer direct questions from the military judge about whether the Department of Defense still had its copy of the report. The Defense Department had acknowledged receipt of the full report in a court declaration in January 2015, and the U.S. government told both a federal court and the military commission judge that it would be preserved.

That was early last year, long before anyone inside the government was asking an outgoing president to declassify the report. That was also long before the Defense Department was having to discuss the existence of the document in court, thanks to the trial of alleged 9/11 attack mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed. Mohammed's attorney hinted that the document could very well vanish sometime after Inauguration Day and asked the presiding judge to push the DoD to preserve its copy as well.

Martins, however, refused to make any such promises, much less fully confirm the DoD's copy was still intact.

Nonetheless, asked whether DoD had kept its word and retained its copy, Martins repeatedly evaded the question, and finally replied, “I’m not prepared to answer the question. I can determine if there’s a way to find that information.”

Whatever that means.

Martins may not want the document to become part of the court record. Or it could mean Martins truly has no idea whether the DoD's copy is still intact. Either way, it's clear the Defense Department would rather not acknowledge the document's existence on the record. Fortunately, the judge has ordered the Defense Department to answer the question in writing within the next couple of days.

Hawkins points out that even if Obama doesn't want to declassify the document, he could at least make sure every other government agency with a copy takes care to preserve theirs as well.

Obama could remedy the situation by writing a letter to executive agencies instructing them to open the report and begin reviewing it for lessons learned, and replace any copies that were destroyed. The administration could also withdraw its opposition to detainees’ pending motions seeking preservation of the report as a court record in both the military commissions and habeas corpus cases.

As it stands now, all that has been guaranteed is the existence of a single copy -- the President's. And that one's just going to sit in his archives for the next dozen years, still out of reach of the general public.

from the because-of-course-not dept

Over the last few weeks, we've noted that Senator Dianne Feinstein has pushed for the CIA Torture Report that she originally commissioned be declassified (beyond the 500 page, heavily redacted, executive summary that was declassified). And then we wrote about two former Senators asking for President Obama to make sure that he preserve the report as a federal record. This is important. The full report, approaching 7,000 pages and costing $40 million to prepare, apparently details all sorts of wrongdoing by the CIA in torturing people in the Middle East. It's a comprehensive look into not just the horrific program by the CIA, but its failure to produce anything useful and the details of how the CIA lied about it. And here's the problem: Feinstein's colleague on the Senate Intelligence Committee, the current chair, Senator Richard Burr, wants the report destroyed.

Burr is claiming that the report is a Congressional Record and not a federal record, and thus has asked for all copies to be returned, where he can make sure they are destroyed and never to be read by anyone. This dispute has resulted in people in the Executive Branch being told not to read the report and not to enter it as a federal record, thus keeping it away from being subject to FOIA requests, and while everyone figures out what to do about Burr's request.

In response to Feinstein's more comprehensive request for declassification, top White House lawyer Neil Eggleston has written a letter saying two things: first that the document will be preserved under the Presidential Records Act, even if the copies at various agencies are returned to the Senate. This is good. It means that even if Burr gets the document back, he can't destroy every single copy, and also that it's likely that someday there will be a release of a declassified version.

I write to notify you that the full Study will be preserved under the Presidential Records
Act (PRA). The determination that the Study will be preserved under the PRA has no
bearing on copies of the Study currently stored at various agencies.

Then there's the bad news: that day won't be any day soon. Eggleston also informs Feinstein that there is no effort underway to declassify the report, meaning that it's simply not going to happen under this President at all. He does note that under the PRA, the information should be classified for twelve years:

Consistent with the authority afforded to him by the PRA, the President has informed the
Archivist that access to classified material, among other categories of information, should
be restricted for the full twelve years allowed under the Act. At this time, we are not
pursuing declassification of the full Study.

This is a ridiculously weak cop-out. The study deserves to be declassified -- especially as the incoming President elect has said that he plans to reintroduce elements of the torture program and even push for it to go further than it did in the past. Having the public recognize the problems of the program -- not to mention other government officials, seems like it would be fairly important.

Of course, given that Trump and his team have suddenly picked a fight with the CIA -- including accusing the CIA of lying, perhaps he'll actually be more interested in exposing the CIA's lies detailed in the report. In this age of topsy-turvy news where everything has been flipped upside down, stranger things have happened...

from the stay-of-obfuscation-requested dept

So far, very little has been done with the Senate Intelligence Committee's 6,700-page "Torture Report." Some agencies haven't even read it (and have blocked others from doing so). Others have been completely careless in the handling of their copies. Most of the federal government -- especially the White House -- just seems to want it to go away.

Two former long-term Senators, Carl Levin and Jay Rockefeller (who both retired last year) -- taking a look at the incoming administration -- say it's basically now or never if the full report is going to be saved. And these are two Senators who had plenty of experience and exposure to these issues. Rockefeller chaired the Senate Intelligence Committee at one point and Levin chaired the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Given President-elect Donald J. Trump’s unconscionable campaign pledge to “bring back waterboarding” and “a hell of a lot worse” — acts that would be illegal if carried out — President Obama’s leadership on this issue has never been more important.

Drawing on our decades of work in the Senate and our chairmanships of the Armed Services and Intelligence Committees, we are calling on President Obama to preserve the full torture report as a matter of profound public interest. We are not asking him to necessarily agree with all of the report’s findings, though we certainly hope he does, but we are asking him to protect it as an important piece of history.

The president could do this simply by allowing departments and agencies that already possess the document to enter it as a federal record, making it much more difficult for a future administration to erase.

So far, the public has only seen a summary of the report. While the summary, at 500 pages, is much better than nothing, the entire report could be buried forever by the new White House. If anyone owes the public some last-minute transparency, it's President Obama. Despite frequently claiming to head up the "most transparent" administration in history, the Obama White House has presided over more whistleblower prosecutions than all others combined and a steady increase in FOIA request denials by federal agencies.

Entering it into the public record would head off future attempts to memory-hole this important report, something that's already been attempted.

Senator Richard Burr... took the unusual step of trying to recall the full report that Senator Feinstein had distributed — to prevent it from ever being widely read or declassified. In this effort, Senator Burr has written to President Obama, insisting that the full report not only be returned but that it “should not be entered into any executive branch system of records.”

Since then the full report has been locked in limbo, with the Obama administration unwilling to even open the document, but also unwilling to return it to Senator Burr.

Even if Donald Trump hadn't already vocalized his support of the tactics the report condemned, the temptation to turn this into a partisan issue (Sen. Burr is a Republican) could possibly see this request granted. If it is, the report will be assigned to the historical dustbin. The executive summary will always point to its existence, but no one outside of a select few will ever have a chance to see the report in its entirety -- and the $40 million in taxpayer funds that was spent to research and write the report will go up in smoke too. That will make it that much easier for the incoming administration, and those beyond it, to start revising the CIA's history by whitewashing the details that were never made public in the first place.

from the look-at-that-roadmap dept

President Elect Donald Trump has made no secret of his dislike for any reporter who reports stuff about him in a negative light, and throughout the campaign and even after being elected, he has spent a tremendous amount of time insulting, attacking and berating the press. Oh, and threatening them with bogus defamation claims that rarely seem to turn into actual lawsuits. Trump famously promised to "open up" the libel laws if he became President, though there really isn't that much he can do on that issue directly.

But, as a story at Politco is noting, it's probably not libel laws that reporters should be worried about: it's things like the Espionage Act and bogus intrusive investigations of reporters by the DOJ. And, really, while the report only mentions this in passing, if a President Trump goes down that route, it'll be because he's picking up on the trend created by his predecessor, President Obama. As we've noted, President Obama has used the Espionage Act against more whistleblowers than all other Presidents in history combined. In fact, he used it more than twice as many times as all others combined. Think about that.

During the Obama administration, the Justice Department brought more criminal charges under the Espionage Act—a vague 1917 law that makes it illegal to share information related to national security—than it had under all previous presidents combined. It used the Espionage Act seven times against government employees who spoke to reporters. If Trump continues to aggressively prosecute reporters’ sources, it will make it much tougher for journalists to report on the government.

“What is very true is that an increase in prosecution of leakers and leak investigations has a huge chilling effect on the ability to report important information about what the government is up to,” said Laura Handman, a partner at Davis Wright Tremaine who specializes in media and First Amendment law.

This could be especially damaging to journalists because confidential sources and government leakers are likely to be the best source of exposing potential wrongdoing in Trump’s government.

And that's not the only intimidating tip that a President Trump could pick up from President Obama:

Trump’s Justice Department could also ask for more federal grand jury subpoenas against reporters who rely on confidential sources to report on government activities.

This is another tactic that the Obama administration has used. New York Times reporter James Risen was nearly held in contempt of court and thrown in jail when he refused to identify one of his sources, who was being prosecuted under the Espionage Act.

The Trump administration could even try to use the Espionage Act to bring criminal charges against journalists, according to First Amendment experts.

“There are sections of the Espionage Act which have now been used, under President Obama, against leakers which could be used against those who publish information obtained from those leakers,” Abrams said.

The article also talks about the infamous and ridiculous case of James Rosen, a Fox News reporter that the Obama administration came mighty close to using the Espionage Act on, calling Rosen a "co-conspirator" in the leaking of confidential information. Then Attorney General Eric Holder later admitted he regretted this decision, but it was pretty difficult to take seriously.

Here at Techdirt we called out the Obama administration many, many times on these highly questionable tactics, intimidating and threatening whistleblowers and journalists alike. And people told us we were overreacting. Somehow, I get the feeling that those who opposed Trump in the election will suddenly have a change of heart over these practices. If Trump goes down that road, those who are upset should be blaming President Obama and his Justice Department for leading the way.